One thing I think is very important to investigate besides what was mentioned is to follow the money. ie. insurance and liability if sunk in harbour, schedules, maintenance, and would the captain lose his job if he took a stand concerning safety that impacted money flow

I don't think so. The owner had no obligation to know the risks the boat and the crew will sustain or if the boat will be safe on doing the passage.

It is the Captain that has to decide what is safe or not even at the cost of his job.

Regards

Paulo

In general (in the US and most maritime nations' law), owners are permitted to leave the decisions of whether to set sail, routing, seeking shelter, navigation, to the sound discretion of a competent captain, and avoid liability, or at least limit it to the value of the vessel post-casualty (ie zero here) provided the ship is (to their reasonable knowledge) seaworthy at the outset.

But if they make, or participate in, any of those decisions, or have "privity or knowledge" of unseaworthiness, then they may be found unable to limit liability, and may share in liability even if the primary misjudgements were the captain's. And claimants will look to the deeper pocket of owners and underwriters who may have to end up paying for the shallow-pocketed captain's negligence (if this is the case), even if their own negligence was much less by comparison.

One of the crew/survivor stated that he had been through 2 hurricanes on the Bounty with the captain. I would like to hear more details on that one which the investigation should cover. To me statements like that should be proof enough that we should all be very careful in thinking that we know it all by our past actions/experiences. Some common sense seems to be lacking.

Again from the Gcapatin site from Jemplayer:

"The whole vessel at sea is safer then at port thing just comes off as pure dumb ******* to me. With insurance now a days who should care what happens to a vessel while at the dock? Tie the ****** up and head for the hills. Two people would be alive right now if they used common sense.

Saying "well the U.S. Navy does it" is just another sign of these peoples ignorance. They are in steel hull boats several hundred feet long so yes they can do a lot more damage to the docks and themselves with high water and winds, but they have the sense also to go the complete opposite ******* way of the storm. Coupled with the fact that keeping our navy functioning and that large ships need more water under them in a storm so they do not start to hog and sag to the point that they eventual break their keel do to the wave period decreasing due to the water getting shallower. There is a real purpose and some reasoning to that, but to send people out to potentially save what essentially amounts to a rich mans toy is criminal. How these people in their wooden and plastic toys think they are in the same league as a 500 hundred foot ship is beyond me.

Hell all of us are on vessels that could weather anything worse then these amateur sailors could ever imagine and none of us would have even thought of attempting some of the **** I have seen done by those idiots. Really going out in the middle of a bay to ride a hurricane out just thinking that if worse comes to worse and you sink you can just jump in your dingy or swim to shore?!?!?! May be those guys should take a survival craft class and see the difficulty and dangers in beaching a boat in a storm. Without a doubt these guys don't know that a sea anchor is needed to have any real chance of success. Just ask they crew that died in Japan when they didn't take their vessel offshore far enough that it's back broke. When beaching they didn't use a sea anchor and they might have well been in a washing machine on spin cycle.

But I've never gotten the fascination the hard core amateur crowd has for saving their toys by putting their lives in danger to do it."

... and would the captain lose his job if he took a stand concerning safety that impacted money flow ...

If the master ultimately lost his job for his decision NOT to put to sea, then so be it -- that's called "moral courage" in the military, and it is one of the many factors that differentiate a "profession" from a "vocation."

Dave, give me just one possible reason for the Captain to sail to a Hurricane, risking the live of his crew, when if he stayed in Port even if we would have the possibility of having some damage on the boat, would have the crew safe- PCP.

Paulo, Since you address me specifically, and there are many other posters here who have said similiar, I will respond. Like i have said numerous times I dont understand why he set sail. How many times do I have to say that. I AGREE WITH YOU, I have also said that that he erred in judgement for doing that. Can we just get that straight here. I beleive that this was a contributory factor in the sinking. It also has not been demonstarted to me that that was the only factor and that this vessel would not have floundered during tomorrows northeaster. This will come out when the maintainence and build quality are analayzed.

I have also said that there may be other factors involved in the sinking. I dont understand why everyone takes that to mean that I am DEFENDING the Captain here. I am not. What I am saying is that there is more to come in terms of facts. It seems as though a bunch of the posters think that is wrong to say...while there are a fair number of posters who also want to see the other facts also and not rush to judgement that he is the only or even the principal cause.

Also many on this thread have made this HUGE deal about the Captains u tube post. Many have made insinuations of his incompetance from that. When the actual crew memebers on baord with him that fatefull day now say something which either contradicts or gives another angle of the captains personality, you dont want to accept that. An eyewitness account and the interviews of people who really worked with that captain seem to be to be a more valid view of the captains personality, termperment, and abilities than social media posts. Let me ask another quest. I have yet to hear any of you admit that yet. Maybe thats because you have already rushed to judgement.

The real danger in the rush to judgement is that you may neglect to overlook other critical factors in this. e already have said time and time again he should have left in a hurricane looming. So we are done with that. No need to keep repeating it.

Since we want this to be a learning experience and discuss it so that we dont repeat the mistakes...please keep your minds open that there many be other contributory reasons and correctioins from this tragedy. One of the accusations was that he wasnt qualified to be a captain. Another was the builkd quality of the ship. Another was the pressure put on the Captain by the company. Another was the inexperience of the crew. Another was the general maintainence of the ship. On and On there are other things to learn so they are not repeated if we keep an open mind and do not rush to judgement.

Lastly remember you are getting much of your information from posts on the internet, twitter, SN, news etc and other social media sites which we all know are far less than accurate and can be slanted and doctored.

Actual transcripts from interviews do not fall into this category. Please keep level heads here. The posters here who keep saying let the other facts come out are not wrong to say that and should not be attacked, called dumb or ignorant and shouted down.

That's very sweet of the crew to speak so highly of the captain. Will they be chipping in to pay the multimillion dollar wrongful death jury award?
- James wilson29

This comment is unproductive and smacks of sarcasm and will not contributed to us learning more about this so as not to repeat it

It also assumes speculative facts not yet in evidence. Unless I am wrong no multimillion dollar wroingful death injury award has been made. The captains next of kin may very well have a wrong death suit against the company, the builders, and the people who repaired the ship. Lets let the facts play out.

Please do not contribute to the hype as someone may pick up what you said here and assume it is a fact. Also please do not attack me for pointing it out to others..

Let me point out that the Picton Caste whose captain chose to stay in the same port (and said that did not understand why Bounty's Captain had choose to sail to a hurricane) did not sustain any damage with the storm and even if he had, he would have done the right thing putting the live of his crew above a possible damage on the boat.

...

Regards

Paulo

I don't think that's correct. For what it's worth, my understanding is that the Picton Castle was in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, not Connecticut. He may have felt he was safer there, being farther away from the storm.

If the master ultimately lost his job for his decision NOT to put to sea, then so be it -- that's called "moral courage" in the military, and it is one of the many factors that differentiate a "profession" from a "vocation."

I agree that in retrospect it seems overwhelming that the captain's decision to leave port was a bad decision. It's possible (though purely speculative) that he was influenced by pressure from the "main office" (perhaps driven by financial interests, especially given a possible desire to have the boat available for viewing by potential buyers in Florida).

However, I need to call you on the "armchair quarterback" aspect of your statement. It's real easy for any of us to sit back and call the captain a coward for not being willing to lose his job. Large organizations like the military and major airlines have organizational infrastructure in place to investigate and protect a captain/pilot's decision to scrub a trip due to safety concerns. One of the things I take away from this whole incident is the comfort of knowing that when I get on a commercial aircraft, the pilot has a powerful union to back him up if he scrubs a flight for safety reasons. I'm not the world's most pro-union guy, but I can see that a union serves a useful purpose in this situation.

Contrast that with a captain working for a small, financially struggling foundation. If he lacks the protection of a union (a bold assumption on my part), all of a sudden the pressure on him may be much greater.

Any good investigation has to look at the culture of the employer. When I say that undisclosed facts can greatly change the interpretation of events, this is part of what I mean. It's possible that the root cause was not the captain's choice to go out in THIS hurricane, but was the decision to go out in his first hurricane ~15 years ago.

When it comes to safety, there is often a tendency to fall into creeping incrementalism, where cutting a corner and getting away with it one time leads to cutting even bigger corners later. Like launching a space shuttle at ever-lower temperatures, and ultimately below the glass transition of the rubber O-ring (think Challenger disaster), or growing complacent over the repeated impacts of hydrogen tank insulation on the ceramic front edge of a wing (Columbia disaster).

In these cases, the root cause was not necessarily a decision made on the day of the launch, but rather resulted from a gradual erosion in the overall quality of judgement starting months or years prior to the actual accident.

So the lack of "moral courage" that you were referring to may not have happened in October 2012, but in earlier decisions that the captain made. It's possible that he should have sacrificed his job 10 or 15 years earlier because of his initial poor decisions to go out in prior hurricanes. But if those earlier hurricanes had changed course and made this captain look like a coward for not going out, how many of those guys on gcaptain would have been defending him? I suspect they would have been stepping up to take his job after he got fired.

The USCG has a lot of expertise in this area, and I expect that their investigation will reach back well before the day the captain decided to go out into the hurricane.

The father of a Blue Island man who survived the sinking of the replica of the HMS Bounty during Hurricane Sandy said it hasn’t quite dawned on his son yet that he’s lucky to be alive.

“They’re going through an emotional roller coaster right now; there’s some grieving and relief, all at the same time,” said Jim Salapatek, the father of Drew Salapatek, a 28-year-old deckhand on the Bounty.

Salapatek said he spoke to his son shortly after the crew was rescued.

“I talked to him right after they pulled him out of the water, after the Coast Guard debriefed him and obviously the paramedics gave him a going-over, and… tired. Tired and I think emotionally drained, but fine; in good spirits for all that he’s been through.”

So we know the crew was debriefed by the Coast Guard after they were pulled from the water. That, more than anything else, could be why they aren't saying anything about what led to the sinking. Maybe they have been told not to say anything until the CG investigation is done. That would be logical.

I think it can be expected that the investigators will be looking at the following (in no particular order):

1. NOAA weather reports - what was known and when?
2. Condition of the ship, from stem to stern
3. Experience of the crew and how many crew a ship like the Bounty required
4. Testimony from the crew, both past and present
5. Minimum safety equipment required - did the ship have it?
6. Life safety equipment required - did the ship have it?
7. Because of the video, any evidence the captain actually chased hurricanes
8. How often the ship was in rough weather and whether any measures were taken to avoid that
9. Did the captain ignore any specific warnings (other than weather warnings) not to go to sea?
10. Were there any actions the captain could have taken to avoid the tragedy?

What did I miss?

Thats a great start

1- Training procedures and emergency procedures
2- The timeline of what the captain knew and when he knew it
3- The involvement of the company in the ship setting sail
4- The intended purpose of the ship
5- The actual limitations in terms of seaworthiness of the ship to withstand any and all
types of weather
6- The captains actions once an emergency was called
7- A detailed analysis of any and all maintainence work- were the correct materials
used, was the maintanence finished before they set sail.
8- The Captains credentials and experience
9- Were there any contributing or compelling factors from any other entity other than
the company for instance the city/ marina where it was docked which compelled
the ship to leave
10- Was a float plan or emergency alternatives discussed when the storm deepened and
turned northward vs veering east
11- What exactly caused the vessel to sink.....scientifically and specifically

By choosing to post the reply above you agree to the rules you agreed to when joining Sailnet.
Click Here to view those rules.

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the SailNet Community forums, you must first register. Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.Please note: After entering 3 characters a list of Usernames already in use will appear and the list will disappear once a valid Username is entered.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.